


The Dangers of This Face

by lears_daughter



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Jessica Jones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Kilgrave is a monster
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-21
Updated: 2015-11-21
Packaged: 2018-05-02 16:40:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5255681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lears_daughter/pseuds/lears_daughter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor winds up in Hell's Kitchen and learns more than he wants to about the man who wears his face and the unfortunate woman on his arm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Dangers of This Face

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Jessica Jones or Doctor Who.
> 
> Spoiler Warning: There may be mild spoilers for the show. Assume anything is fair game.

It happens not long after the Doctor loses Rose to the other dimension; not long after Donna Noble unceremoniously crashes into his life and just as unceremoniously departs from it. He attempts to persuade the TARDIS to take him to the Sydney Opera House in 1988 so he can catch a particularly good production of La Bohème. Instead, he finds himself in New York City, sometime in the 2010s. 

This is a city still recovering from a massive alien invasion. Most of its inhabitants lost at least one person they loved in the battle. Demolition is ongoing to take down dozens of buildings that were rendered structurally unsafe. (An older Doctor will one day meet an eternal girl who will point out the damage the Doctor, too, leaves in his wake.)

The Doctor finds himself walking the streets of Hell’s Kitchen, his hands deep in his pockets, feeling the grime of the neighborhood all the way through the soles of his shoes. Strange that this neighborhood, so close to booming Times Square, should be the hardest hit by the attack, yet suffering is writ into the lines of every wall he passes. The Doctor is physically pained to see it, but helpless to influence it. Much of what is to come in this era of superheroes has already been fixed, and any effort on his part to change things would result in utter catastrophe. 

He passes a blind man who gives him a cordial nod of greeting. He passes an impeccably clean dive bar. And then he passes a man who wears his face. _This_ face, his tenth.

The Doctor spins to keep his eyes on the man, flabbergasted. His immediate thought is that he has somehow crossed streams with his own timeline, but that can’t be true; the TARDIS wouldn’t allow it, and anyway there is nothing Gallifreyan about the man disappearing down the block, his arm linked with that of an elegantly-dressed young woman with striking black hair.

What confluence of events could have led to this, the Doctor wonders. Him here, at this time, with a person who could be his twin?

Fascinated, he follows.

He trails the couple to an upscale Italian restaurant, where the woman hands over her coat at coat check and then ascends the stairs with the man’s hand at the small of her back. The man leans over and whispers something in her ear, making her giggle.

“Table for one, please,” the Doctor tells the maître d’.

“Do you have a reservation?” the maître d’ asks.

The Doctor affects a look of outrage and holds up his psychic paper. “Don’t you know who I am?”

The maître d’ reads it and gasps. “Tony Stark? My apologies, sir, of course I recognize you. Where would you like to be seated?”

The Doctor claims a booth upstairs with a good view of the couple seated in the center of the floor. He pretends to read the menu as he observes their easy conversation. The woman really is quite lovely, although there is something haunted in her eyes that sets the Doctor on edge. The wait staff flutters around the two of them, perhaps a bit too eager to help.

The Doctor wonders at his doppelganger’s story. Who is he? What does he do? Are there similarities between the two of them that go beyond physical appearance?

The couple’s date goes smoothly enough that the Doctor has nearly resolved to leave them alone after dinner. Then dessert happens. A waiter, carrying two plates of tiramisu, trips within feet of the table, splattering cream all over the hem of the woman’s dress. A _faux pas_ , to be sure, but not one that deserves the reaction that follows. 

The woman pales. The hapless waiter scampers backwards on his rear, babbling apologies. And the man with the Doctor’s face slowly sets down his wine glass. 

“You dirtied Jessica’s dress,” he says loudly, in a voice that is so familiar and so wrong.

The waiter cowers. “Mr. Kilgrave, I—”

“A waiter with such clumsy hands doesn’t deserve to have them. Pick up a knife and cut them off.”

Without hesitation, the waiter plucks a steak knife out of the hand of an astonished customer and brings the serrated edge to his left wrist.

The Doctor clenches his fists, caught between conflicting urges. One, coming from his two hearts, says that he must interfere. The other, from his time sense, insists that he cannot. There is more at stake here than is visible on the surface.

Before the waiter can do more than draw a thin line of blood, Kilgrave’s date, Jessica, gasps, “Wait, please.” Gone is the comfortable, happy façade she wore all through dinner. She is clearly terrified.

“Stop,” Kilgrave orders the waiter, who immediately obeys. Kilgrave cocks his head as he examines his companion. “Problem, Jessica?” His voice is mild but interested, as if he is truly curious to see what she will do.

“It was an accident.” There are tears in her eyes, and in her voice. “Please don’t hurt him.”

Kilgrave shakes his head. “I don’t hurt people, you know that. He’s going to hurt himself. How else can he learn not to make stupid mistakes?" 

She reaches across the table and takes his hand, which is apparently a gesture so unprecedented that it makes his eyes go wide. “ _Please_ ,” she says again. “Let’s just go. Please. I won’t—you—” She swallows heavily, steeling herself for whatever she is about to say. “You won’t have to order me tonight,” she says, and each word is laced with agony. “I’ll participate willingly. I’ll—I’ll like it. Willingly.”

A slow, terrible smile crawls across Kilgrave’s face. “If that’s true, prove it.”

There is dead silence in the restaurant as Jessica pushes back her chair and walks around the table. Standing over him, she hesitates.

“I’m waiting,” Kilgrave says in a sing-song voice, shooting a warning glance at the waiter.

Jessica takes a deep breath and sits in his lap. She draws Kilgrave into a deep, passionate kiss. He makes a startled sound in his throat before returning it, tangling his hands in her hair.

Nausea clenches the Doctor’s stomach as he watches. He wants to put a stop to this vile situation, but again the time sense cautions him to wait, and Rose Tyler is not here to propel him to ignore that caution. Something inevitable is playing out before his eyes.

Kilgrave is the one who breaks the kiss, evidently in need of oxygen. He pants as he presses his forehead against hers. “I could take you here, right now, on this table and make everyone watch. Would you like that?”

“Don’t you want me all to yourself?” Jessica shoots back.

Kilgrave laughs and gently pushes her off of his lap, but only so he can stand and take her hand. “Ah, Jessica Jones. You never fail to delight me.” He pulls her toward the exit, eager for what is to come.

She plants her feet at the threshold. Kilgrave raises an eyebrow at her. She jerks her head at the unfortunate waiter, who is still holding a knife to his own wrist.

Kilgrave sighs. “Ignore my command to cut off your hands,” he says, his voice bored, never taking his eyes away from Jessica’s. “Everyone else, give your waiters tonight an excellent tip.” To Jessica, he says, “Good enough?”

“Good enough,” she agrees weakly, and leads him down the stairs.

The Doctor remains at his table long after they’ve gone. He stares down at his fingers, eyes his reflection in the polished surface of his knife.

Jessica Jones. He knows that name well, and now he knows why he cannot save her. Her destiny is laid out before her, but the first step of that path is for her to free herself. She will be a hero, but only if he allows her to be a victim. 

For a moment, he dares to imagine himself interfering regardless. Perhaps Jessica would enjoy traveling the universe, all of time and space at her disposal, while she heals from the terrible mental wounds that have been inflicted on her. Perhaps a future as a hero is not worth the present as a victim.

That is not the Doctor’s call to make.

“Oh, Jessica,” he murmurs. “I am so, _so_ sorry.”

Anger builds in him over the short walk back to the TARDIS. _Why_ would the TARDIS bring him here, to rub his face in his own helplessness? Why show him something so horrible and so out of his reach?

It isn’t until he places his hands on the controls, sick at heart and desperate to leave, that it hits him. He wasn’t brought here to see Jessica. He was brought here to see _Kilgrave_. To witness what someone with that face and those powers of persuasion— _this_ face and _these_ powers of persuasion—can do.

This was a warning. Limit yourself, or risk becoming a monster.

“Unnecessary,” the Doctor growls, thinking of Jessica Jones and the broken resignation of her kiss. “I’ll never be like him.”

He pulls a lever and leaves this wretched place behind.


End file.
